Destroyed Beyond Repair
by Arglefumph
Summary: To get rid of a Horcrux, it must be destroyed beyond repair. Harry and his friends ponder the implications of this fact.


_A Few Days after the Battle of Hogwarts_

"There's still one thing I don't understand," Ron said, putting down his drink. "Remember when you went up against the Basilisk in second year? The basilisk fang destroyed the diary Horcrux, right?"

"Right," Harry said, not sure where Ron was going with this.

"You got bit by the basilisk's fang, too. So how come that didn't destroy the Horcrux in you? Why didn't the basilisk venom work back then?"

"I...hm," Harry said.

"Well, that's simple enough to explain," Hermione said. "The Horcrux-receptacle has to be destroyed beyond repair, so Harry would need to have died. He didn't die, so the Horcrux stayed inside him."

Harry nodded. Hermione was the one who did the most research on Horcuxes, so she would know.

"But that's not what happened with the locket," Ron said. "I just smashed the mirror inside with a sword. A simple _Reparo_ would have fixed it."

"You did considerably more damage than that," Hermione said. "You broke the locket into pieces. _That's_ what destroyed the Horcrux."

"All I did was cut the locket in half! You probably could fix it with a bit of tape!"

"It certainly wasn't as thorough as destroying it with Fiendyfyre," Harry allowed.

Hermione gave a sigh of exasperation. "The Horcrux-receptacle has to be destroyed BEYOND REPAIR. When you cut a locket in half, it can no longer function as a locket. That's the same thing as destroying it!"

"Really?" Harry grinned. "So with Hufflepuff's cup, all I had to do was poke holes in it, so it couldn't hold water anymore? That would have been a lot easier than trying to get the sword from Griphook!"

"That's not what I mean!" Hermione said.

"Wait, I just thought of something," Ron said. "How was the ring Horcrux 'destroyed beyond repair'? It still worked as a ring. Dumbledore wore it all of last year."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe when Dumbledore took the Resurrection Stone out of the ring, it counted as destroying it."

"I still can't _believe_ you dropped the Resurrection Stone in the middle of nowhere," Ron groaned.

"Master of Death, eh?" Harry grinned. "I didn't need it anymore."

"Getting back to the original point," Hermione said, in a somewhat annoyed voice. "To get rid of a Horcrux, it must be destroyed beyond repair. If a Horcrux is an object, that means it must be totally broken. If a Horcrux is an animal, that means it has to die."

"How is dying the same thing as being 'destroyed beyond repair'?" Ron pressed. "Because Harry died from an Avada Kedavra. That leaves the body perfectly intact. It's not like they cut his corpse up into pieces or something."

"Not an image I wanted to picture," Harry said, closing his eyes. "Look, I died, all right? That got rid of the Horcrux. Simple as that."

"Did you _really_ die, though? I mean, you came back to life two seconds later."

"What are you saying?" Harry asked. Surely Ron wasn't calling him a liar!

"Well, the Horcrux died. You stayed alive," Ron said. "Funny, innit? We were scared for our lives this whole year, and you had a 'get out of death free card' up your sleeve the whole time!"

"Yeah..." Harry said. "Add that to the list of things I wish I knew back in first year."

"Along with how to destroy Horcruxes."

"That would have been useful."

"You're looking at it the wrong way," Hermione tried explaining again. "A Horcrux isn't its own, separate thing. It's always tied to a receptacle. Destroy the receptacle beyond repair, and the Horcrux is also destroyed."

"Come off it, Hermione. No need to be so serious," Ron said. "We're just joking around. Right, Harry?"

"Right," Harry said. He took a long gulp from his drink. "I'm glad I've seen the last of them."

"It's not very funny to joke about Horcruxes!" Hermione huffed. "In fact, it's incredibly morbid!"

"You have to admit, the whole 'destroyed beyond repair' thing is a little weird," Ron said. "It doesn't make a lot of sense."

"Fine, then, Mr. Philosopher," Hermione said. "If you think you're so smart, how about this? What if someone took Ravenclaw's broken tiara, melted the pieces down, then reforged them into an identical tiara? Does that still count as destroying it? Or does the Horcrux come back?"

"Uh..." Ron said, a stupefied look on his face.

Hermione grinned smugly.

Harry stood up quickly and headed for the door.

"Where are you going, mate?" Ron asked.

"I've got to find the broken pieces of Voldemort's Horcruxes, fast!" Harry called.

**The End**


End file.
